Hero's Umbra
by Daedalus30185
Summary: A Spectre is dead, a Prothean beacon is destroyed, the geth have declared war against the Systems Alliance and the one man who is spearheading the investigation into their leader is a borderline insane Commander Shepard, better known as "the Butcher" and a crew he has little to no interest in getting to know. (rating likely to rise to M)
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One:**

**First Morning**

Systems Alliance Marine captain Emily Keyes woke up from her pod on the SSV _Normandy_ precisely two minutes before her alarm went off. She rubbed her rich forest green eyes. Despite her constant laid back nature until she was in a combat zone, she loathed getting up in the mornings, especially when it meant coming out of a dream about her wife Sasakira and their little blue 5 year old daughter, Kinela.

"Sassy", how Emily affectionately called her wife, lived at Arcturus station with several other Alliance families. It was the closest thing to a permanent home they'd had for nearly three years. Their marriage had been difficult mostly due to the fact that every time Sasakira had gotten settled in and making good friends they'd have to pack up and move to another world. More than a few announcements about moving resulted in arguments that caused the paint on the walls to peel but a few minutes of cooling off always did the trick.

At least now she could see her daughter grow up with a better degree of frequency. But with little Kinela about to start school, Keyes had been giving some serious thought about the possibility of her not signing up for another five-year tour of duty. She had already served for 19 years, but now? Maybe it was time to put the guns and armor behind her. She hadn't been able to spend any time with them in the last eight months. Or had it been ten? Either way, all she had to go on was video calls every two to three weeks when she didn't have a blackout order.

Keyes' pod was opposite from commander Shepard's, the ship's XO. Their pods were on the nose end of the ship to make sure that all lower ranking crew members in their duty shift were accounted for. The two were ICT graduates, but Shepard managed to soar through the ranks ahead of her, despite his younger age. When she first met him the two had gotten along instantly like childhood friends. The last few years had been a little more... strained. The simple fact was, Shepard was pushed close to the absolute limit of his sanity. Elysium, Akuze and a dozen other missions like it combined with his childhood being destroyed on Mindoir, she was simply amazed the man was still able to keep from blowing his brains out most days, let alone be a functioning Navy officer.

"The time is oh-six-thirty," Her alarm said as a pair of yellow lights above her head began flashing gently to wake her up. Along with it an archaic song from Earth's 20th century.

"The time is oh-six-thirty," it repeated after a second, the voice overlaying the music. Hitting the deactivation button on her alarm, the pod aligned itself from parallel to the ceiling that it hung just a few millimeters from to 15º off perpendicular to the deck plate. The soft angle made for easy entering and exiting. The marine captain was already wearing a dark urban camouflage jumpsuit with mostly deep range greys and black colors.

Shepard, however, had a much harder time of it when he woke up. His pod had lowered just like hers but he was still asleep as it came down. His head was twitching side to side in a nightmare of some sort. She stepped out of her pod door after it opened and stood watching Shepard's as he slept. After a second or two of arguing it in her mind Emily knocked on Shepard's pod. The XO woke up suddenly, knocking his head against the transparent material.

"Argh, dammit. Thanks," Shepard grumbled as he opened pod door.

"Sorry. Looked like you were having a bad one."

"Not really," he brushed it off. "That is, no worse than usual."

"You care to get out of your bed?"

"You care to move so I can?"

"Oh yeah." She sidestepped out of his way. The commander stepped out already wearing his navy blue jumpsuit. "Feel like a quick sparring match?"

"Not really. We'll be jumping through the relay in ten minutes to Eden Prime. Captain Anderson said he wanted me on the bridge when we do."

"Right, so I pull you out of bed and not even so much as a 'thank you ma'am'? Good to know some things don't change."

"Yeah, pretty much. Look, um..." His voice changed to more serious and apologetic. "About last night..."

"Don't worry about it. I know it's not the easiest thing to talk about."

"Yeah, that's... one way of putting it." He was averting his eyes suddenly, not able to even look at her directly.

She gave him a sympathetic pat on his shoulder. "Shep, I told you, don't worry about it. When you're able to talk about what's been," She paused to think about how to phrase it without sending him into a bad flashback. "affecting you, you'll tell me." It was a tricky thing, PTSD. She had to be careful how she talked about the missions that went bad without making him feel he was being coddled. Then again, that's how it was for most ICT operatives, herself included.

A sheepish grin came over his face. "I ever tell you how good of a friend you've been to me all this time?"

"Dear lord. Commander Carver Shepard actually gave someone a complement. I'm pretty sure this was marked in the ancient scrolls as a sign of the apocalypse."

"Har har har. And what did I tell you about using my first name?" Shepard hated his first name. It just felt like it belonged to someone else. He had the option to change it of course, but couldn't ever bring himself to do it. Those who knew him well enough to address him by his given name used his middle name as per his request.

"Sorry,_ Cole _Shepard."

"That's better. Could you start a fresh pot of coffee?" He used the terminal by his pod to check on the status of the other crew members.

Keyes put an extremely dark cube that was 8 cubic centimeters in size into the pot. '_The miracles of technology'_, she mused. Ground coffee was unfathomably better than the processed coffee made by Stellar Consumer Good. The human company was founded shortly after the discovery of the Charon relay and development of humanity beyond its own star system. As they liked to brag, five of every six meals served on an Alliance vessel or deep-range station was made by SCG.

The coffee took all of one minute to cook, making enough for twenty people. Pouring it into two cups, one for Shepard and the other for herself, she pulled three creams and two sugar packs from the cabinet above the coffee maker to dilute the smouldering liquid down. It was the only way it was bearable in her mind.

"Mornin' Cap'n." One of Keyes' squad members, Staff Sargent Hailey Keller groggily walked towards the ship's small dining area. The young woman's hair platinum blond hair had an extreme case of bedhead. Keyes was looser than most when it came to her squads' grooming standards, but she couldn't understand how any active marine could let their hair grow so long.

Her other two squad members would be coming off duty in a few minutes, Privates Stasya Križ and Tatiana Garza. The idea was that if an emergency arose, an entire squad wouldn't risk suffering from sleep deprivation. Adrenaline helped considerably, but relying on the human body's instinct to survive alone could result in a fireteam being killed.

"Grab a shower, Hailey," Keyes said as she set down her coffee on the counter. "It'll wake you up better than the coffee will."

"Thanks ma'am. Think I will." The sargent was rubbing her face as she shuffled towards the ship's one bathroom.

Shepard walked by grabbing his cup without breaking stride and sat down at the ship's only table. This was something she wouldn't be looking forward to: Shepard having to interact with the crew. He was fine around her and a few others, friends and former colleagues they'd served with in the past. However the couple times she'd been with him around someone else, someone they hadn't met yet, he had been callous, crude and confrontational. Basically, a complete bastard.

She hadn't seen him interact with any of the crew so far but it hadn't been a week yet. The shakedown run was scheduled for a total of seven months, perhaps more. Alliance brass loved changing orders at the last minute or leaving some key piece of information out. A friend of hers from boot said that when they got an order directly from command, he felt like he was walking around with a live grenade in his pocket. Just waiting for it to all go wrong, for that one thing they "forgot" to mention. After the black market incident in the Rigel system, Keyes felt the same way when upper echelon started giving orders on small scale deployments.

Having three ICT grads on-board, there was something going on plus there was the turian Spectre. Too many heavy-hitters for a shake and bake.

_'Well well, think of the devil,'_ she mulled. Nihlus came up from the cargo bay. The Spectre had been sleeping in the cargo bay but in all honesty, she was sure he slept with one, if not both of his eyes open all the time. Assuming of course he even slept.

Nihlus walked up to Keyes and got a piece of dried meat from storage and began eating it in a corner. After finishing, Shepard and Nihlus went down to the cargo bay.

She had a small smirk on her face when Shepard left. He crunched his empty yogurt cup and threw it in the garbage disposal as he walked. She found it a little amusing that even when he wasn't in a combat zone he still preferred to be suited and armed.

* * *

><p>Nihlus and I shared a silent elevator ride down. Personally, I found the Spectre a disturbing creep. Somehow, he managed to follow me everywhere save for the latrine. Half of it was a gut feeling I had that he was looking over my back, the other half was that he was always standing in the most tactically secured part of a room and watched me until I left. It was more than a little disturbing, and I had already had my fill of it.<p>

When the door opened I headed for my locker and suited up. Five minutes until we jumped from Charon to Eden Prime, but I only needed one and a half to get my armor on, strapped together and locked down, then another twenty seconds to link my weapons.

I put my torso between my locker's number pad and Nihlus and entered the 16-digit combination I encrypted the locker with. After entering the numbers, a holographic list came up: armor, pistols, ARs, sniper rifles, shotguns and SMGs. I pulled the heavy N7 Onyx armor and my M-6 pistols "Pollux" and "Castor". The two were packed tight with extra add-ons, a melee stunner, enhanced heat dampeners, a 3x scope that would compound on the suit which can already go to 5x zoom.

Both pistols were also linked to my "personal VI". It was an experiment that ICT was conducting, to create a VI that would have the intuition and adaptability of an AI without the self-awareness. A year and a half ago 24 volunteers were requested to have a VI program installed directly into their brains. We were warned that it would feel like having an extra person in our head. They had no idea just how right they were. It was powered by the natural electrical firing in the synapses and would, in theory, boost their combat efficiency by 20% if not more. The VI that had been assigned was called Omicron or "Milla" as the technicians referred to her. The odd thing was, Milla behaved more like... a school girl with a crush.

_"Oh my god! I can't believe you're just gonna let him look at you like that! Seriously, are you just gonna stand for this?"_ The most annoying part of her was that she often initiated these conversations. I would have liked to have her cut out of my head, but according to the med-techs, the hardware had moved just enough for it to be inoperable without severe risk of brain damage. I'd have demanded they cut anyways, but she actually was extremely helpful regulating the systems in my suit.

_'Shut. Up. I'm busy!'_ I could think aloud much more clearly, but it usually ended in me screaming silently for her to stop talking. That, or I'd order it to play a song from my collection.

Clipping Pollux and Castor to the upper parts of my leg armor I went back up the elevator and walked up the stairwell to CIC.

The ship's intercom gave a chirp before Joker began announcing the imminent FTL jump. _"Arcturus Prime relay is in range. Initiating transmission sequence."_

Private Jenkins greeted me as he passed, heading for the rear of CIC. I simply gave him a shallow, polite nod in return.

"_We are connected. Calculating transit mass and destination. Relay is hot. Acquiring approach vector."_

I could see a small section of stars out of the cockpit. _"All stations secure for transit."_ On a frigate or any other small vessel, that meant "strap yourselves in if you don't want to go flying". Most smaller ships couldn't fit a dampener system powerful enough to keep from occasionally jarring their passengers.

"The board is green. Approach run has begun."

I sat down as the ship made the final adjustments for jump. "Hitting the relay in 3... 2... 1."

The blue energy erupted from the relay striking the ship. After a few seconds of sustained build up the MEG became strong enough to reduce the vessel's mass to a millionth of a gram and boost engine output to more than ten thousand giga newtons of force.

"Thrusters... check. Navigation... check. Internal heat emissions sink engaged. All systems online. Drift... just under 1500 klicks."

"Fifteen hundred is good." Nihlus' voice came from behind me. I could feel myself practically jump onto the ceiling. "Your captain will be pleased."

"I hate that guy." Joker looked back to make sure he left.

"Nihlus gave you a compliment," Kaidan said somewhat confused. "So you hate him?"

"You remember to zip up your jumpsuit on the way out of your bathroom? That's good. I just jumped us halfway across the galaxy and hit a target the size of a pinhead. So that's incredible!" It was a coloful, though somewhat inaccurate analogy, but he was right. "Besides, Spectres are trouble. I don't like having him onboard. Call me paranoid."

"You're paranoid. The Council helped fund this project. They have a right to send someone to keep an eye on their investment."

"Yeah, that is the _official_ story, but only an idiot believes the official story."

Joker was right. Three Alliance ICT grads and a Council Spectre for a simple shakedown run meant something much bigger was going on.

"Will you two try and pretend to act like officers?" They gave a quick apology.

"_Joker."_ Anderson's voice came through over the ship's intercom. _"Status report."_

"We just cleared the relay, Captain. All systems are online including the IES stealth drive."

"_Good. Link us up with the nearest comm buoy. I want mission reports sent back to Alliance brass before we reach Eden Prime."_

"Aye, sir. Oh, and I think you better brace yourself, sir. I think Nihlus is heading your way."

"_He's already here Lieutenant."_ Joker shook his head. I could almost see him going 'oh shit' in his head. _"Tell Shepard to meet me in the debriefing room."_

The line clicked off. "You hear that?"

"Nice going. You pissed the captain off and now I'm gonna pay for it."

"Pfft. The captain always sounds pissed off to me."

Kaidan joked back to the pilot. "Only when he's talking to you, Joker."

I walked back through CIC towards the debriefing room. Navigator Pressly and Engineer Adams were arguing about Nihlus. The latter was speaking over the intercom, likely from engineering. Ignoring them I continued on past the galaxy map where Chakwas and Corporal Jenkins were talking. The young marine was going on about Spectres like they were glamorous intergalactic men of action, something akin to an interstellar version of the old James Bond from Earth's 20th and 21st centuries. He tried roping me into their conversation but I ignored him as well. It took far more effort to ignore Jenkins than it had been to ignore Pressly and Adams.

If Keyes heard about this though she'd chew my ear off. She had this nasty habit of getting information as if she was there herself. Shaking off the thought of what she'd do to me over this, I opened the door to the debriefing room. Nihlus was standing near the back staring intently at a holographic display on the wall.

"Ah, Commander. Good. I was hoping to talk with you before the captain arrived."

"Where's Captain Anderson?"

"Don't worry, he'll be along shortly. I wanted to talk with you about this world we're going to, Eden Prime." He began pacing back and forth. "I've heard it's quite beautiful."

"Wouldn't know, never been there myself. Besides, I'm a Navy officer, not a guide for tourists with fat wallets and fatter guts."

"Hmph." I couldn't tell if that was at my remark itself or how I challenged his question.

"But you know of it. It's become something of a symbol for your people: proof that humanity is ready to expand, to protect their own. But just how safe is it really?"

My hand moved to my knife tucked under my left armpit and gripped it tightly. "Are you trying to scare me, _Turian_?"

"Your people are still newcomers, Shepard. The galaxy is a dangerous place. Is the Alliance truly ready for this?"

"And yet I'm getting the feeling that right here is about to become dangerous too." My thumb pushed gently against the sheath allowing a shallow flicker of the blade's metal to be visible.

"You had best take care, Commander. It wouldn't be the first time a human lost to a turian."

"Yeah, I'd hate for there to replay Shanxi. Out of curiosity, how did it feel having your indomitable navy get its ass kicked by a bunch of newcomers?"

"Here I thought you were a human with above average tolerance. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. After all, the bar isn't set particularly high for your species."

"Bring it on, you split-jawed son of a-"

"SHEPARD!" Anderson's voice bellowed from behind me. "Stand down! Now!"

I half-turned to my right, my left hand releasing its tight grip on my knife and fell away to my side. My right hand went up in a habitual salute. "Sir!"

"What the hell are you doing?!" The captain was a few inches from my face, wearing his Class C dress uniform.

"Sir, simple conversation, sir!"

"I believe I can offer a more accurate explanation, Captain." Nihlus offered. "The commander is misunderstanding my intentions on the ship."

"Then I suggest we fill the commander in on what's going on here."

"Of course. This mission is far more than a simple shakedown run, Commander."

"Really? No shit. Thanks for the update."

"Shepard." I could hear it in Anderson's voice what he was saying, 'One more remark like that and you'll be relieved of duty for the next week and thrown in the nearest available brig for twice as long.' Truth was, I probably needed the reminder right now.

"Sorry, sir. What's the mission?"

"We're making a covert pick-up on Eden Prime. That's why we needed the stealth systems operational before we jumped in-system. An archeology dig team discovered a beacon of some kind on their latest find. Shepard, it's Prothean."

"They sure about this?"

"Of course. This is big Shepard. The last time we had a discovery like this, our technology jumped ahead nearly two centuries. As an agrarian world, Eden Prime doesn't have the scientific facilities for examination. We'll be taking it to the Citadel for proper examination."

"Obviously this goes beyond mere human interests, Commander. Any technological discoveries from the beacon could affect every species in Council space."

"We don't need you here. We can pass the information on to the Council once we've decrypted it."

"You humans don't have the best reputation. Some species see you as selfish. Too unpredictable. Too independent. Even dangerous."

"Sharing that beacon will improve our relations greatly with the Council. Not only that, we need their scientific expertise. It took us almost a decade to decipher mass effect technology. They know more about the Protheans than we do."

"Convenient that we have to share everything we know, but they keep what they want hidden."

"I'll admit, you do raise a somewhat valid point Commander," Nihlus said. It was surprising to hear him admit that. Most turians I had met looked down on humans since we had come onto the galactic scene. "But the beacon is not the only reason I'm here."

I gave him a suspicious look as Anderson explained. "Nihlus is here to see you in action, Commander. He's here to evaluate you."

"I'd rather have a krogan give me a colonoscopy with his bare hands. Besides, when did we start answering to Spectres?"

"_We_ don't. But _you_ may soon enough. You know just as well as I do that the Alliance has been trying to get a human into the Spectres for years. If an Alliance officer joins their ranks then humanity will have a bigger role in the shaping of interstellar policies. Getting one of us in will show the galaxy how far we've come and give us more say with the Citadel Council. It's good for humanity all around and we both know that."

"Not many could have gone through what you have and come through with a semblance of sanity on Akuze," Nihlus said. "You showed a remarkable determination to survive..." I could feel the bones in my legs, back and arms ache slightly at the mentioning of Akuze. The injuries themselves healed, but the psychosomatic pain was still there from time to time. "It's a talent that, if accepted, will serve you well as a Spectre. As will the resilience and dedication you displayed on Elysium. In fact, there are only a small handful of Spectres who have a record as exemplary as yours. That's why I put your name forward."

"Wait a minute, _you_ put my name in the hat? Why?"

"Not all of us harbor resentment against humanity. Some of us see the value you have. Your service record is among the most exemplary I've seen, human and non. You're an impressive soldier, Shepard."

"Very well then. What's next?" I was actually intrigued. I wasn't sure though how I felt about possibly joining them.

"I'll need to see your skill in combat myself. Eden Prime will be the first of several missions together."

"You'll be in charge of the ground team," Anderson said. "Secure the beacon and get it onto the ship ASAP. Nihlus will accompany you and observe the mission."

"I'll get it done, sir. Just give the word."

"We should be getting close to Eden—" Joker's voice cut in over the intercom.

"_Captain! We've got a problem sir."_

"What is it Joker?"

"_Transmission coming in from Eden Prime, sir. You're gonna want to see this."_

"Bring it up on the screen down here." The holographic screen in the back of the room activated.

The camera was shaky which meant it was likely a handheld or gun camera that was transmitting the video. There was a fireteam under heavy fire in a shallow lake. One of the soldiers in light Phoenix armor shoved the camera man to the ground. The muzzle flashes, exploding patches of dirt and camera failing to hold still for more than a second, made it impossible to determine who the marines were fighting.

A male officer grabbed the camera, calling for support. _"We're under attack! Taking heavy casualties! Repeat: heavy casualties! We can't... argh!... -eed evac! They came out of nowhere! We need-" _A round caught him in the torso. The camera rolled left showing three of the squad, all in light or medium Ursa armor. All three were staring in awe of something while hell continued to erupt around them.

Five seconds later the feed cut to static.

"_Everything cuts out after that. No comm traffic at all. Just goes dead. There's nothing."_

"Reverse and hold at 38.5."

The feed reversed a few seconds showing something descending through the blackened clouds. Red lightning was erupting around it. Even off Earth, seeing lightning as something other than a near perfect white light, was all but unheard of. At least among humans it was. But that wasn't the disturbing part. What was, was what looked like a metallic claw that was descending through the clouds.

A quick glance to Nihlus showed his mandibles quiver for a second. If it unnerved an elite Spectre, it unnerved me even more.

"Joker, what's our ETA?"

"_Seventeen minutes out, Captain. No other Alliance ships in the area."_

"Take us in, Joker. Fast and quiet. Looks like this mission just got a lot more complicated."

Nihlus spoke for the first time in what felt like ten minutes. The video got to me badly. "A small strike team can move quickly without drawing attention. It's our best chance to secure the beacon."

"Shepard, get Alpha geared up and ready. Meet us in the cargo hold."

My eyes hadn't moved from the screen of the 'hand' yet. "What about Bravo, sir?"

"We'll need to keep the team small and mobile. The fewer the better."

"Understood." As a fellow KC, or 'Kolony Cid' a purposeful misspelling of 'Colony Kid' by Spacers and Earth-born humans was used as a derogatory name for those who grew up on a non-Earth planet, Emily wouldn't enjoy sitting on the sidelines. "But permission to have them on hot standby?"

"... Granted."

I clicked the subcutaneous radio that was implanted behind my jawbone, under my ear. "Em? It's Shepard. Get you girls suited up. 'Nother shitstorm just hit."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two:**

**Eden Prime**

**part 1**

Emily was pleased with how quickly her squad armored up. Four and a half minute. It was a fair bit slower than it took for her to get her armor on and run a quick check on her systmes, but they were still quite quick.

"Remember ladies, pack for heavy combat! I want extra grenades, medi-gel and a hardened commlink to the ship." While she was an expert in field medicine, explosives, and any weapon that fires a bullet or holds an edge, she needed the extra bodies. Not even the best ICT graduate could hold off much more than a squad of enemy soldiers from the other side of a trench. In an unknown situation against an unknown enemy, going solo would be tantamount to suicide.

Sargent Keller grabbed an extra twenty-one grenades and packed them in to three separate pouches in her armor. As the squad's medic and sniper, Private Križ, took an extra quarter liter of medi-gel. Private Garza, the hacking and technical expert, carried the hardened commlink. She disassembled it and packed it into her armor to keep it safe.

Emily looked back to Shepard and his squad on the starboard side of the hold. She was a little worried about how he might handle it. But then, sometimes you just had to step back and let things happen on their own. What was really getting to her was that Bravo squad, _her_ squad, was ordered to wait on the ship. She could handle being assigned to a non-combat unit. That was no problem. The problem was when everyone else around her was jumping feet first and she was left to sit and hope.

"Good luck, Shepard," she whispered under her breath.

"What's that Captain?" Garza asked.

"Nothing. Now get back to it!"

* * *

><p>Second Lieutenant Alenko, Corporal Jenkins and I hit the ground on a bit of a peninsular cliff overlooking one of Eden Prime's cities. Nihlus had jumped before us at another LZ. When the three jumped off the <em>Normandy<em>'s ramp, they combat rolled bringing their rifles to bear, checking the perimeter.

"Clear," Kaidan said first. Jenkins confirmed no hostiles within his visual range next, then me.

I walked to the cliff edge and looked over the end. The last thing we would need is half a platoon of troops flanking from the cliff side in the middle of a firefight. Looking back to one of the cities, I could still see the weapons' fire with my naked eye, hear it without the auditory enhancers in my suit.

"Oh my god. Oh my god. What happened here?" The entire area smelled like burning flesh and blood. It was a smell I was all too familiar with already. And as Jenkins' first real foray into combat, fighting on the same soil he grew up on, it would be traumatizing.

But he was lucky by comparison. For a 16 year old teen to go through that, for days without knowing what to do... At least here we had an objective we could focus on.

"Pull up your EVA mask," I said turning around. "Move out." With the helmets in full EVA we'd have about seven hours of oxygen. If we needed more than that several things would have gone wrong. Not that this was textbook as it was.

I walked the fifteen feet to a shallow brook before it actually hit me; I didn't know which way it was to the beacon. There hadn't been enough time for topographical maps to be uploaded into our suits' HUD before we landed.

"Jenkins, take point."

"Sir?" His voice sounded like he was still in shock from looking at the burning city.

"You're on point. You know the area. Move it, Private."

"A-aye aye, sir." I gave him a quick pat on his shoulder.

"All right Corporal, let's go."

"Uh, right." He cleared his throat. "This way. Try to keep away from the cliffs. They have a tendency to give way."

We advanced in standard three-man formation: advancing by leapfrog with the middle keeping an eye on the group's rear. The practice was in use since WWIII where the soldier taking up the rear would be picked off one by one. It was an easy way to take out half a squad before they realized the unit had been targeted.

The brook ended in a large pile of rocks obstructing the path. Kaidan was in the rear so I walked backwards to Jenkin's position. "Okay, which way now?"

"There's a... um," he cleared his throat before speaking again, "there might be a way around but we'll be pretty close to the cliff's edge."

"Understood, Corporal. Just get us to the dig site."

"Y-yes sir."

We doubled back a few dozen meters to head over a small hill. I reached the top of the hill and knelt down. Jenkins came up behind me. There was something about this mission that felt wrong. Even if they were only after the beacon, there shoud have been troops to secure the area. Once we were on the ground our suits gave off a faint electronic signature. Yet we hadn't come across a single patrol, no ambush sites... nothing. Nothing for fifteen minutes. All of this felt wrong.

It wasn't the fight itself that made soldiers terrified. They were. Anyone who wasn't afraid to die was either psychopathic or had a death wish. But what made the fear of combat seem like nothing by comparison, was the silence when everywhere else was gunfire and screaming. Part of me felt like I was stuck back on Akuze.

"_You know, this really is a nice view, Carver. I mean, the blood and bodies kinda ruin the romantic view-"_

_'Shut the _fuck_ up, Milla. I am not in the mood for your shit right now.'_

"_Oh fine. If you insist."_

I was so focused on the VI that I failed to notice the noise from a pair of combat drones grow. They came out of the tree-line about 50 meters ahead of us. Both were white, oblong shaped with a small repeating gun installed beneath. A single blue "eye" was in the middle of the main body.

There wasn't even time to raise my rifle before they shot Jenkins. Rounds tore through his shields and armor as if they weren't even there. He gave a brief, frantic scream before collapsing, the drones still firing until his face slammed into the dirt of Eden Prime.

I ran for cover behind one of the larger rocks, Kaidan taking up my former position. Our M-8 Avenger rifles opened up on them in a small hail of gunfire. It took three whole seconds of sustained fire before the drones were destroyed.

Kaidan slowly walked up to Jenkins' body and gently rolled him over. "Tore right through his shields. He never had a chance."

"We'll come back for him later." I reached down and took his dog tags and added them to my own chain. In its place I put a small tracker so he could be found later. "Just keep your head on a swivel."

"Aye aye, Commander."

_'Milla, send a message to the _Normandy. _Tell them we need an evac for Jenkins. And run a check on the rifle. Make sure it's operating on N7 standards.'_

We headed for the tree-line the drones had come from. No other direction to go except for back. That certainly wasn't an option.

Milla's report came in before we hit the tree-line. The rifle was operating at its usual optimum capacity which meant the drones had enhanced shielding. _'Milla, pattern rounds to rotate on a shielded assault frequency. Adjust motion sensor to read thermals and disruptions in the atmosphere.'_

"Kaidan, set your Avenger to disruptor rounds." ICTs had a subroutine added to our combat VIs that allowed it to alternate specialized rounds without having to stop firing and manually adjusting the refinement process. It gave ICTs a distinctive advantage in a head-on fight.

I was coming around a large tree when three large blips on my HUD came on. They were around the corner. Likely another scout patrol. My hand shot up in a fist as I crouched down. I motioned to Kaidan to throw a grenade rigged for a small EM burst. He tossed it around the tree. The splash from the grenade overloaded the motion tracker in our helmets and reset our kinetic barriers to 0%. It would take a few seconds for them to come back up which would leave us vulnerable. Of course, neither of us planned on giving the drones a chance to boot back up before our barriers were online.

Kaidan mostly stayed behind cover as he fired his Avenger. I, however, needed to move farther out. As I rolled out into the open, combat drones were laying on the burned grass. All three were desperately trying to get their altitude back up. Two were the same model as the ones that attacked us earlier. The third looked was a dark blood red with a large launcher below the its main body, likely a grenade or missile launcher of some sort. Welded to the body and the launcher was a tripod for it to stand. Rather than standing still, it was dancing around. Big mistake. Without their shields, the three drones were destroyed in a third of the time as it took the pair from earlier.

Coming out from cover, Kaidan picked up a few of the scrap metal components.

"Lieutenant, I know the silhouette of every combat drone used by every Citadel race. These," I kicked a few of the larger pieces, "are most certainly _not_ among them."

"Then who built them?"

"If I knew, Lieutenant, I would have told you."

There was a short string of gun shots followed two seconds later by a brief scream. "Move. Now!" We charged forward, jumping off a 10 foot ledge.

* * *

><p>Gunnery Sargent Ashley Williams had been separated from the rest of Dog Squad for nearly three hours. She'd been moving from ditches, under tree roots, whatever she could use as cover since their position had been overrun. It had been 56 hours since she had been able to sleep. The adrenaline that had sustained her for the first 20 hours had run dry, as had the second wind of adrenaline ten hours later.<p>

The geth had been attacking the area around the dig site heavily for the last thirty hours. Thirty hours of pure, unfiltered hell. As a result, her armor had become laced with singe marks and holes that were coated in medi-gel.

Her legs were damned sore from near constant running. They hadn't hurt this much since basic training. A pair of geth drones had been hunting her for the last 15 minutes. Every time she thought she got away from them a menagerie of bullets overhead told her otherwise. It was almost as if the things were toying with her in a cruel game of cat and mouse.

A short burst pelted her kinetic barrier. Her right foot was mid step when the rounds hit, causing her to lose her balance and fall. Rolling onto her back, she drew her pistol and got off two quick shots. Both rounds hit the drones' optical visor. The two of them exploded in a flurry of sparks and metal rain.

A pair of geth dragged a colonist onto a mobile platform of some sort. The colonist, possibly even one of the excavation team, was begging them to stop, let him go, anything. A large spike tore up from the center of the device skewering the colonist like a shish kabob. She just about vomited at the sight. The man's legs and arms flailed for a few seconds before going limp.

Ash heard a quiet, terrified squeak. It wasn't until the two geth turned to her that she realized that it came from her. They were maybe 25 meters away, 30 at most. Backing up a meter or so, she quickly got back up on her feet and ran to the nearest cover she could find. She had a couple of large boulders she could use. Each one was almost large enough to hide a two or three behind.

_'God, I know we haven't been on speaking terms much recently, but please, I don't want to die here. Not like this.'_

A whump on her left drew her attention. She raised her rifle, looking at the soon to be scrap metal mechs. But it wasn't geth that she saw. It was a pair of Alliance soldiers, one of whom bore a red stripe on his helmet and left arm. An N7 agent!

_'Just gotta say, you have excellent timing for the cavalry!'_

* * *

><p>I could see an Alliance soldier pointing a standard issue rifle at Kaidan and I. Her armor bore a similar resemblance to the woman in the video Joker fed us before all transmissions went dead. I held a hand up to show her we weren't hostiles, but she was already lowering her weapon.<p>

We moved in close to her, but somthing came in behind her. The angle was too tight for either of us to get a good line on them. Her response though was something that surprised me. She gave a quick pair of kicks to whoever it was. At least, it looked somewhat like a person. The glowing flashlight for a head not withstanding. Her follow through was as good as her initial strike; she struck it with the butt of her rifle. Continuing her momentum she spun around and laid the thing out with a short burst from her rifle.

A second unit came from the far side of the rock she was using for cover.

"Down!" Kaidan swung her feet out in front of her so she would fall on to her back, keeping her rifle trained on the thing in the process. The combined fire from our three rifles tore the second one apart in less than a second.

"Clear," she said picking herself up after the second one dropped. By this point both Kaidan and I were standing next to her.

"Identification, soldier."

"Gunnery Sargent Ashley Williams, SAMC 40th brigade, 212th platoon, Dog Squad, sir. You the one in charge?" She didn't salute. Probably because she didn't know my rank. Not something I'd grill her for. Besides, salutes in combat zones carried a high risk of the officer being saluted ending up dead from the first sniper shot.

"Commander Shepard, SSV Normandy. What the hell happened here Williams?"

"I'm not completely sure, sir."

She gave a couple of forceful, obvious blinks. "Sorry, sir. I've been up for over two Earth-standard days and on the run for one. The geth hit us hard, sir."

"And your unit?" I was curious about why she thought it was geth, but having a few extra hands right now was a bigger priority.

"I uh, I think I'm the only one left."

I was already in a bad mood about loosing Jenkins. Having the only survivor we'd found being a deserter pissed me off. "The hell do you mean 'you think'? You don't know?! Are you seriously telling me you left the rest of your unit behind to die?"

"We held our ground as long as we could! The geth overwhelmed us!" She shouted back.

"You sure it's geth? Nobody's seen them for almost 300 years," Kaidan said.

"Sure as I can be. There's not exactly a long list of synthetic lifeforms in the galaxy."

What she said actually helped piece a few things together, most notably how they not only ripped Jenkins' shields apart, but how they were able to take so many rounds before the barriers collapsed, and their low EM visibility.

"You think they're here for the beacon?" Even in a near non-stop firefight, most soldiers didn't stray far from their initial engagement zone unless instructed to or they moved as a large group. It was a simple matter of safety. The farther someone strayed, the less they knew the area and the more likely they'd be found by a stray fireteam and get shot.

"Since it's really the only thing of value here, I'd say that's a safe bet, sir."

"Good. Stay here. There should be another Alliance squad coming through in short order. Lieutenant Alenko and I will secure the beacon and call in orbital support. Join us then."

The Sargent objected. "Sir, with all due respect, you can't expect me to sit on my hands after the geth killed my whole squad. Let me come with you."

Kaidan joined in. "We could use the extra help, sir. And she knows the area better than both of us."

"Fine then," I grumbled, slowly moving down the hill. "Just remember who's in charge."

Just another day in the Alliance spec-ops. One of my squad dead and his temporary replacement was a soldier who abandoned her unit when things got too hairy for her. Just what I needed.

* * *

><p>"Of course sir. Just point and I'll shoot." He simply grunted and walked past her.<p>

It didn't take a genius to figure out that he didn't even want to know her let alone work with her.

She scoffed at him under her breath. "What the hell is that guy's problem?"

"You mean the Commander? Honestly, I don't know. Only served with him a couple of days and, he doesn't really talk."

They didn't see or even hear him come up. Shepard grabbed both of them by their collar.

"Move it, both of you," he started leading them by the neck.

"Williams is on point," he said giving both of them an extra shove before letting them go.

She grimaced a bit. She should have known that he'd put her on point. In his place, she'd probably do the same thing. At least it wasn't too far to the beacon, maybe a quarter mile. But then again, she wasn't entirely sure which direction it was. She had been running for so long that she had gotten a little lost in relation to the beacon.

* * *

><p>Bravo squad was on the ground near where Jenkins' beacon was. When Emily saw the young Corporal's body she had to remind herself not to gag. ICT may have gotten the best missions, but that also usually meant they got the toughest and goriest ones.<p>

"Normandy Actual, this is Bravo One. Do you read?"

It took a second before Anderson replied. _"This is Normandy Actual. What's going on? We've had total radio silence from Shepard. Nihlus says he hasn't heard anything either."_

"We've found Jenkins' body. Poor kid looks like he got hit by a cannon. We'll need a casket to get him out."

"_Understood, Bravo One. Can you reach Shepard? We're still not able to get a signal through."_

"Hold a moment, Actual."

She closed the channel to the _Normandy_ and opened one on a secured ICT line.

"Shepard? Hey Shepard! You hear me?"

The response was silence. Not even static. It was a disquieting quiet.

She reopened the line to the SR-1.

"Normandy Actual, this is Bravo One. Negative on the radio. Permission for Bravo to locate Alpha squad."

"_Permission granted, Bravo One. Good hunting."_

"Copy that, Actual. Out." She closed the line and turned to her squd. "Listen good here Girl Scouts. Whoever is here is packing heavy ordinance. Jenkins didn't even have time to pull his weapon. So, I don't want you to be frosty, I want you to be ice cold. Hear me?"

All three gave a bold 'Yes ma'am!' in unison. Emily grinned under her helmet. Now all they had to do was perform under fire with the same vigor. "Follow me, stay close and keep chatter to a minimum. Don't know how good their hearing is, so assume they can hear us a mile away."

* * *

><p>Two and a half minutes of walking, then we ran into a hard-body patrol near the edge of a forest tree line. Five models that were likely general infantry. Either they didn't have any heavy ordinance with them or they didn't see us as a big enough threat to warrant the expenditure. If it was the former, it was a serious lapse in logic for a machine race. If it was the latter, it was a tactical mistake on their part. But of course, there was no way for them to know that until after they were little more than scrap parts.<p>

It took five minutes for us to drop them. I checked the extended range of my HUD which went up to 50 meters. When it got that far out, it became less accurate. False positives were common along with hostiles that slip through the sensor net starting at around 35 meters, and became more and more frequent the farther out I scanned. No new targets appeared, but that didn't mean a whole hell of a lot, given that they have a low sensor profile.

"Okay, this way," Williams said as she walked through the dismantled bodies. "It _should_ be a few meters from the trees."

"What do you mean 'should'? You don't know?"

"No, sir. My platoon was to cover the area around the beacon. The 232nd was responsible for the beacon and geeks who dug it up."

Missions go bad all the time. Intelligence is inaccurate, units get a little loose once they're on the ground or the operational situation changes all the time. It's expected. But when it happens to you when your ass was already in the fire and you learn you might be wandering aimlessly, it tends to piss you off.

Putting my M-8 on the hard-points on my back, I picked up one of the geth rifles. It was extremely heavy, around 20 to 25 pounds when compared to the 12.5 of an Avenger. R&D would be wanting to get their hands on as many as possible. If the geth were even half aware, they'd try and clean up their equipment.

Milla began integrating the weapons' systems with my suit's HUD. The whole time she was doing it though, she was complaining about how the system made little sense. I just told her to proximate and get over it.

Coming out of the trees we came under fire from another geth squad. This one though had a rocket launcher in with them. I leaped behind a rock before I even realized it was coming at me. Combat induced reflexes could be a beautiful thing. Outside of being shot at or having a bomb go off though it wasn't all that useful. When facing off against an army that was extracting a large artifact however, it might save your life a few times.

I opened a secured line to Williams and Alenko. Or rather, as secured as I could get. There was no way of knowing how many of our lines they'd decrypted. "Lay down suppressive fire. I'm moving to flank."

Keeping to a crouch, I moved around the geth squad. I held off attacking until I could see the whole squad from the angle I was at. I threw a low-grade EMP grenade, detonating it before throwing two more grenades, each with a 4 meter kill zone. They bounced off the ground, detonating two seconds later. The geth squad was reduced to little more than tassels of metal and a mix of hydraulic and data-conductive fluids.

"Clear! Commander, you okay?" Kaidan called from his position.

"Fine," I replied.

Moving to where the geth squad had been, things didn't quite add up. Their position had been easy to flank, but none of them took a more defensible position. There was only one reason I could think of that would explain that: we were right next to the beacon. If they had moved to a more defensible location then it would have allowed us to move past them more easily.

_'Milla, locate any topographical anomalies in the surrounding area. Set as priority waypoints on the HUD.'_ It took a second for a small white diamond to show up in my helmet with a number beside it. Seven. Seven meters. Just another seven meters and then we could call the _Normandy_. They'd pick up the beacon and we could clear the geth army off of Eden Prime. The fact that there were still squads on the ground meant that they hadn't taken the beacon yet.

"We're close. Let's go!" I grunted as I heaved the geth rifle up as I broke into a slow run.

The distance marker counted down but when it hit '0' there was nothing but an old looking wall.

_'Milla, recheck coordinates and update.'_

"What's going on here? The beacon should be here," Williams said.

"Somebody must have moved it. But who did it; our side or the geth?"

"It doesn't matter now," I said. There were a half dozen corpses scattered in the area but none of them wore armor. It was likely they were the scientists who dug the beacon up in the first place. "We can't stay here. There's likely to be a squad coming soon given how long it took to eliminate the last two we ran into. Williams, if the 232nd moved it, where would the beacon be?"

"It might be the temporary research site up the hill." She said jutting her head to the other edge of the wall.

* * *

><p>Nihlus had long since figured out why Shepard hadn't been communicating with him: the geth were jamming all signals. What they were doing was a tricky measure. Any singular device large enough to affect the whole invasion area would be large as a skyscraper. If there were multiple smaller jammers, it would be harder to find the source but at the same time, that meant that as the geth were pushed back, holes would begin to open up in their perimeter. With a single jamming source though, it would likely be placed in the center of the area of operations and would be easy to find due to the high power output.<p>

The other squad leader, Keyes, had been in communication with him. He gave her his position and what intel he had. The last part wasn't much though. He knew it was geth and that they were here for the beacon, a fact he had begrudgingly told her. It wouldn't have done any good to keep her in the dark so why bother?

The geth had already seized the beacon. A force of almost forty-five geth loaded it onto a cargo tram. He had taken twice as many out, but they were either single units or in small squads, no more than five or six at a time. Going head to head against a whole platoon without a launcher of some sort would be suicide.

He kept a safe distance away from the tram line. They didn't speak audibly so eavesdropping was pointless and he didn't have enough information on their software to risk a remote hack.

Once the tram left with most of the geth he moved up, radioing Keyes. "Captain, I've reached a tram station. The geth just finished loading the beacon onto a car."

"_Damn. How many did you see?"_

"A platoon's worth escorting it. There's likely to be more at the far side. If they were turians, there'd be at least a battalion along with an armored platoon. That's not counting air cover of course."

"_Wow,"_ one of Keyes' marines said over the line, _"you spikeys sure roll out a big carpet don't you?"_

"_Garza! Get the hell off this channel!"_ Keyes shouted.

"I'll hold here. I'm sending you my position. You have ten minutes. After that, I'll be forced to go after the beacon."

"_I have the coordinates. ETA, five minutes. That is if we don't run into any parties."_ She gave a slight chuckle before the line clicked off.

That was something he never understood about humans. Why was it so many of them insisted on making jokes during a war? There was nothing funny or practical about it. It was quite stupid. Must be some sort of human coping mechanism.

Moving in to the ramp, he ducked behind cover, his customized phaeston rifle ready. It had already mowed down twenty geth today and he could feel it ache for more. There were at least a dozen standard geth platforms plus a few heavy units. He had to keep changing how the rounds were cut to counter the geth's modifying shields. Every half dozen or so he'd have to change to incendiary, armor piercing, disruptor, explosive, just to keep them from bouncing off like water off a piece of metal.

He leaped up, quickly walking up the steps two at a time. What he saw... _who_ he saw threw him. "Saren?"

The turian who'd recruited him turned around, not saying a word.

"This isn't your mission, Saren. What are you doing here?"

His former mentor walked slowly, as if his mind was somewhere else. "The Council, though you could use some help on this one." A hand was placed on his shoulder as he passed.

He looked back to a pile of crates that had been used as makeshift cover by the dock workers. "I didn't expect to find geth here. The situation's bad."

"It's worse than you thought, but don't worry. I have things under control." Nihlus' eyes went wide as he heard the trigger start to click. The one downfall of the D-32 "Peacemaker" pistol: the trigger had a loud, distinctive click when pulled. By comparison to the crack the gun made, the trigger was nothing. But Nihlus didn't hear it as the round pierced through the back of his head.

His body collapsed on the ground, his blue blood pooling out through the exit wound that tore between his eye socket and nose.

"Sorry old friend," Saren said walking back towards the tram where another cart was arriving. "But what I'm doing here, you wouldn't understand. You only would have tried to stop me, stop us. I couldn't allow that."

* * *

><p>A pistol round echoed, bouncing off trees. I couldn't tell where it came from or how far away it was. Milla however was figuring it out. <em>"Four possible bearings. Thre- hey! It's hard to tell you what direction when you keep turning! Three-one-six, range one hundred ninety meters. Bearing zero-nine-zero, range one hundred eighty-five meters. Bearing zero-four-eight, range two hundred eleven meters. Final possibility, bearing two-three-zero, range two hundred twenty-nine meters."<em>

_'Well, thanks. So, you're telling me that shot came from any direction.'_

"_Well, yes. But you've got something to start with."_

_'Don't try and get smart with me, Milla.'_

"_Why? Because I'm already seventeen times smarter than your average human?"_

_'Shut. Up.'_

"Sir, what direction?" Williams asked.

"This way." I said moving to the hill on our right. It had a slight curve to it, which made it my best guess for which direction it came from. The walk was a little easier. When we ran into another geth patrol, the rifle I had picked up jammed. Whether it was a safety feature or the geth remotely shut it down the result was the same. It became nothing more than a bulky paperweight, so I tossed it on the ground and left it.

When we made it to the top of the hill, I froze. There was a ship launching in the distance. It was massive, as big as if not bigger than the _SSV __Hræsvelgr_, the Alliance's only "super dreadnought". A massive fire erupted from beneath it as it rose into the sky. Red bolts of energy shot out from it wildly as it passed through the cloud layer.

I tracked it as far as I could with my sniper rifle's scope. I lost track of it when it breached around 4km. Never had I seen a vessel take off that fast. Most ships that large, it would have taken them minutes to balance their inertial dampeners, internal AG fields with the ship's mass effect fields while still gaining steady altitude. But _seconds_? It just didn't seem possible, but there it was.

Milla spoke up breaking me out of the near trance I was in trying to figure out how such a large ship could move so quickly in a gravity well.

_"Just a heads up, I have multiple shadows on the outskirts of the radar."_

Lowering the sniper rifle to view the area below, I could make out seven more of the impaled humans coming down off of the spikes while two more geth infantry held their position and provided covering fire. I put a disruptor round in each of the geth but neither went down.

"Son of _bitch_! Williams, Alenko, covering fire!"

I put three more rounds into the lighted head of the one on the right. Still it didn't drop. Milla switched my rounds to high-ex before I even finished thinking about which rounds might penetrate best. The downside to high explosive modded rounds was they overheated the cooling barrel damn fast. The first high explosive round I fired killed the geth, destroying most of its torso in the process. In the process though, the cooling rods overheated. That was the one downside to the Valiant sniper rifle;

I drew Castor, my M-6 Carnifex from my left hip. Castor's default setting was incendiary so when I shot the mutated colonist in the head, the eyes were litl on fire as it fell to the ground. Williams and Alenko had taken three of the creatures already. That left three, one for each of us. But they were all less than three feet away from us.

I spun my rifle around and grabbed it by the barrel. I swung it into the thing's neck knocking it over; I dug my right into the ground and spun around. When my gun came back around, I started putting pistol rounds into it. They were resilient, but six rounds to the torso was more than enough to keep it down.

Throwing my rifle up in the air, I caught it with my right hand and aimed down the scope, re-clipping my pistol to its locks on my armor and kneeling in the process. The geth at the bottom of the hill had been firing at us the whole time, but at this distance, its single rifle's rounds weren't doing much more than going wild. Five point six pounds of pressure on the trigger was enough all that was needed to put it down.

"Clear." I stood back up.

"Clear," Kaidan said. Williams confirmed immediately after. My blood flowed a little slower after Williams confirmed that the immediate are was clear.

When an ICT heard 'clear', their eyes moved a hair slower since there weren't any immediate bad guys to put a bullet in your head or a knife through your back. On the flip side, their ears started getting touchy at every leaf rustling. The reason for that, is that any one of those leaves that you hear is a sniper adjusting his position to keep his barrel pointed at their favorite head.

A muffled clink sent my mind blank as the training kicked in. My shotgun whipped out from the small of my back as I whirled around. Milla identified the noise as coming from a prefab shelter, but couldn't identify what the noise itself was. Alenko and Williams as it turned out, had similar responses. Both of their rifles were drawn, but they weren't sure what direction it came from.

I motioned for them to take up positions on either side of the door while I hacked the lock; a 512 byte encryption key. For an N7 agent, it might as well be a physical four digit lock on a child's bike. It took Milla all of twelve seconds to unlock it.

Before I had the chance to breach, I heard a human man's voice coming from inside the shed. "Wait. We're coming out. We're unarmed." I stepped back as the door opened. Two men and a woman walked out, all three with their hands raised.


	3. delays

Okay, I'm going to be honest here. I am deep, _deep_ in hot water with my university. I had planned to have at least one chapter out during the break, but I need to seriously focus on damage control. With luck, I'll be back to writing within 4-5 weeks which means an update in 6 weeks or so.

In the mean time, have a happy New Year's!


End file.
